Views from the Choir Loft

Sacred Music Colloquium

Composition with Pencil & Paper or Computer Software?

Fr. David Friel · June 25, 2017 ·

A lunch-time conversation at Sacred Music Colloquium 2017 in St. Paul, MN

Fota X Conference (and other Summer Opportunities)

Fr. David Friel · May 7, 2017 ·

Summer 2017 looks to be a blockbuster period for sacred music activity.

Introducing the Wethersfield Institute Chant Workshop

Fr. David Friel · April 16, 2017 ·

A new chant workshop in upstate New York in June 2017.

Colloquium 2016 • Day 4

Fr. David Friel · June 24, 2016 ·

Reflections on Offering a Colloquium Mass

Colloquium 2016 • Day 3

Fr. David Friel · June 23, 2016 ·

The Organic Development of the Liturgy and the New Music Breakouts

Colloquium 2016 • Day 2

Fr. David Friel · June 22, 2016 ·

Explanatory Images from Wilko Brouwers

Colloquium 2016 • Day 1

Fr. David Friel · June 21, 2016 ·

A concert of early music by the ensemble “Pro-Arte Saint Louis”

Our Church Music Movement: How Are We Doing?

Jeff Ostrowski · November 24, 2015 ·

I never dreamed that so many people love this stuff…and are willing to fight for it!

The Future of the Pipe Organ

Fr. David Friel · March 15, 2015 ·

“The manifold possibilities of the organ remind us of the immensity and the magnificence of God.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

Colloquium Friends & Chant Workshops

Fr. David Friel · November 16, 2014 ·

“Adventus Dona” in the Diocese of San Diego

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

“From six in the evening, his martyrdom had continued through the ghastly night until nine o’clock in the morning. After fifteen hours of torture rarely if ever surpassed in the bloody annals of the Iroquois, the soul of Gabriel Lalemant was freed from its charred and mutilated prison and summoned to join his comrade Jean de Brébeuf in the radiant splendor of God. March 17th, 1649, was the date; for Brébeuf it had been the sixteenth.”

— ‘Fr. John A. O’Brien, speaking of St. Gabriel Lalemant’